How I Parent 3 Boys During Hard Moments

Welcome to Mom On Purpose, where it’s all about helping moms overcome challenges and live their best lives. My hope is by being here, you are more inspired to become the mom you were made to be. I’m Natalie, your host, a wife, boy mom, dog mama, Chicagoan and former lawyer turned professionally certified coach. If you’re here to grow, I can help. Let’s go.

Hello, my beautiful friends. How are we doing today? I hope you’re doing well. As you know, I have three boys under five years old and I’m all about living intentionally through motherhood. Part of that applies directly to my parenting. Now, I would never say that I am a parenting expert, but I am professionally trained in tools that are all about human behavior and human psychology. So when you apply that to parenting, oh my goodness, my friends, parenting gets so much easier.

When you can stay calm, when you can feel confident, when you can feel connected, when it’s chaos and the kids are fighting and it’s witching hour or you’re in public, the questions that we typically have about like, what should I do? I can apply my tools through a different lens, a different angle, and show up as the mom who I want to be without snapping, without yelling, while still holding boundaries. And so I think that when you clean all of that up internally and you can present confidently as a mom in the hardest of circumstances, then you don’t really need a parenting script. So I like to say that when you clean up the thoughts and feelings that you’re having, when you can feel how you want to feel in very hard moments, then the rest takes care of itself. Now, I’m happy to go through examples, you know, in coaching and we do all of that inside the Mom On Purpose Membership, but what I want to share with you here today is a little bit different.

I want to take you through the real parenting moments that are difficult, that would be so easy to just feel frustrated about and to get overwhelmed by or to throw my hands up and just wish for a different season or not know what to do and think that there’s a right way. So these are going to be very practical, very real. And I had known that I wanted to do this episode a little while back. I had it on my list, but I didn’t do a ton of prep. I did a little bit of prep because I wanted it to be based on just what came up specifically for each of these types of hard moments because I wanted it to reflect my very real life. And so of course you’re not going to get lost in the weeds if you have older kids or you have all girls or whatever it is.

Obviously, you know I have three boys under five years old and so those are going to be my examples, but the backbone, the philosophy, the point of the examples is going to land regardless of the age or the gender of your kids or anything like that. So let’s dive in to how I parent three boys during hard moments. I don’t ever pretend that parenting is easy, but parenting feels easier because I have these tools. Does that make sense? Like when I think of calm and relaxing and easy, I’m imagining myself having coffee, chit chatting on the beach with one of my girlfriends, like it’s flow, it’s ease, it’s lightness. When I am raising three boys and it’s 6:00 PM in our everyday life, it is challenging. But I say that and I also can feel very calm, very connected. I don’t create problems that aren’t problems and I do feel very capable in those moments.

And so after, you know, the moment and after I go through it, I don’t feel frustrated or defeated or, like have this negative story that it should be easier. And so a lot of times I think to myself that parenting, like, you know, it’s leadership and it’s an opportunity to grow, but it’s not, it’s not something that feels very hard to me, but also I don’t think it’s supposed to be easy. Does that make sense? It’s actually easier for me because I think it’s not supposed to be easy. You get it? You get what I’m saying here? Anyways. Okay. So a little bit of kind of background of my philosophy and how I think about it. Now I want to dive into what this is all about, specific hard moments. I am going to walk you through a public moment, a separation moment, a witching hour moment, a fighting moment and a disrespectful moment.

So all five of these examples are real and I want to walk you through how I just parented during those moments and really how I’m using these tools to be the mom who I want to be. So I want to be a mom who loves her kids, who validates her kids’ experiences, who’s respectful, but also who’s teaching her kids, who’s holding boundaries. And I think it’s my highest priority to obviously keep my kids safe and love them, but also to take care of my mental and emotional health so that I’m not losing it, so that I’m not overstimulated or overwhelmed so that I can show up as a mom who I want to be. And that is all within my control, which is a beautiful thing. Okay. Let’s dive in with the first example, which is a public moment. Last week at my two older boys’ soccer practice, Robert and Henry’s soccer practice that has about 12 kids, I would say, participating, my son, one of my sons was laying on the ground, was kicking the ball out of bounds, was running back to us.

So I want you to imagine there’s just a class of 12. So there’s like 11 kids mostly listening, right? The two coaches have their attention. Everyone’s kind of listening and quiet and paying attention and, and all the parents, right, because this is a class of, of three and four year olds, all of the parents are kind of just a couple of feet behind the kids watching, paying attention, cheering their kids on and, you know, basically making sure their kids follow direction and listen. And I have the one kid in the class who is, starting to get dysregulated. He is laying on the ground. He is like running off out of bounds whenever his name is called to go do the kick in the goal. He doesn’t do it, kind of hides you know, he is what we might call not listening. And what I want to add for context here is that when I have seen other kids during other practices not listen or do something that the coach doesn’t say that they should be doing, right, like go kick the ball when everyone’s supposed to stop or run the other way or something like that, I have overheard chatter amongst the parents themselves.

Maybe it’s like the mom and the dad talking to themselves, but, you know, nearby and they’re not trying to hide it or anything, but I can just hear them saying like, “Oh my gosh, he doesn’t listen. Look at him. Why isn’t he listening? We really need to work on his listening.” Kind of that sort of banter. And so I want you to imagine that you are in this class like I am and typically the parents are pretty like on their kids about listen to your coach and if they’re not, then you know, something’s wrong with your kid kind of energy. And that is the backdrop. And then we have all 11 kids pretty much listening and paying attention. And then my kid is not listening, not paying attention you know, tired, on the ground, you know, kind of running away, not wanting to participate.

And I also want to add the context that the class prior, he was out there playing. It was kind of the first time where he didn’t need us at all. He was participating, he was playing. He did line up and listen and kick the ball where the coaches said and practiced his dribbling and control and all the soccer things. And so I know in my mind that he is capable of listening, of doing what the coach says, of standing in line, of, you know, when my brain sees 12 kids and 11 of them are listening, right, it’s very easy to compare. So the public hard moment here, what we typically fall into the default brain is like something’s wrong with my kid. If all 11 other kids who are also three and four can pay attention, can follow the rules, can do what the coaches are saying and my kid’s not, well, like that’s a problem.

So I want to just share with you my approach because it is nuanced. Like do I want to help my kid pay attention? Do I want to help my kid participate? Do I want to help my kid understand that respecting authority is important? And do I want to help my kid be a part of a team? Absolutely. Okay? And do I want to hold boundaries? Absolutely. But what I don’t want to do is disconnect from my kid is make it worse, is think something’s gone wrong. I certainly don’t want to feel mom guilt or embarrassment or shame. And I also want to make sure that I’m adopting the parenting approach that I want to have because, you know, going off of what someone else is doing with their kid is, is not me tapping into the mom who I want to be. So I wasn’t rushing to make the behavior stop.

I wasn’t worrying about what other people think. I just reminded myself, you know, her way isn’t supposed to look like my way. I want to help my kid. I know my kid best. I don’t know their kids. I know that my child needs more help. His nervous system needs more help in group settings, doing something new. And for me to be able to take up space like that, like listen, just imagine this class. I am the only parent who’s kind of like proactively really helping their kid along, not from force, not from frustration, certainly not, but also not from like apathy. Okay, well, we’re just going to quit. I think we go to two ends of the extreme. Either my kid is like listening and playing and having a good time and following the rules or it’s like, okay, we got to take our kid out and, you know, this just isn’t going to work, right?

And then we’re mad and we’re frustrated versus, okay, I’m just going to be a part of this experience and I’m going to participate with him and I’m going to help him and it might feel uncomfortable for, for everyone. It, you know, it didn’t, but I’m just going to worst case scenario in my mind so that I feel more comfortable taking up space. And so that’s kind of the backdrop of my mind. I can help my kid even though he played differently last week, that’s okay. It’s okay that he played differently and showed up differently last week, this week. You know, I, I’m just thinking through things that help me think more, purposefully instead of he knows better. He did a better job last week. Why can’t he show up better this week? It’s, oh, he’s more tired this week. I can see that this is a different experience and I still think that this is good for him, even if it’s challenging.

And I’m going to sit here and help him and carry him over. And you know, he wasn’t like screaming or gripping to me. He was just kind of like a little bit collapsing, a little bit not listening, a little bit, right? But I know that if I didn’t practice these stools, I would have been harsh. I would have been like, why aren’t you doing this? You know better. Stand up, listen, pay attention. And I was not like that at all. But I also wasn’t just like, it’s fine. Let’s just walk away and go do something else. And so I had to be in the discomfort of, okay, like I’m doing the soccer practice with him. And you know, it, it’s helpful for him because every single time that I can be there with him to help him expand his capacity for doing something challenging when he’s tired, like that’s a win for us. And I know for a lot of other parents, that experience would not have been a win for them because they had the one kid who wasn’t listening, the one kid who was collapsing, the one kid who wasn’t paying attention or following the rules. And instead, I was really encouraging and cheering him on and being a part of it. And so sometimes he took a little break and other times we got back out there and we kicked the ball around with his brother and it was great. And you know what? That’s just the mom who I wanted to be. And so I didn’t let the people pleasing, I didn’t let the other people’s judgment, I didn’t let the, am I doing this wrong or right? Instead, I just tapped into, I’m the mom that he’s supposed to have and this is what I think I should do with my kid right now.

And there is no one right way, right way or perfect way. Okay? Let’s move on to number two, which is a separation moment. So my, two of my, two out of three of my boys have a little bit of separation anxiety, one of them much worse than the other. So I actually want to talk about the one who has, I would say a medium amount of separation anxiety. My husband was leaving for a quick work trip and, you know, we were explaining to my kids that daddy always comes back, he’s going for a couple days on this work trip. And instead of trying to, I don’t know, kind of like talk my kids out of their feelings, which is typically what we do, like, no, I don’t want daddy to go crying. And it’s like, oh no, let’s, let’s either distract them with something else or let’s say, it’s okay, you shouldn’t feel this way. Like there’s no reason to be upset, right? Which makes it bigger because they’re talking, you’re talking them out of their feelings. Instead, my approach during a separation moment that feels hard is, first of all, it’s so important for me to feel comfortable with their negative emotions. So

I repeat to myself, your big feelings don’t scare me. I can hold space for your negative emotions. The reason that this is so important for me is because it helps me lean in. I am leaning in to my kids’ discomfort, right? That’s not intuitive. Your brain is wired to avoid pain. Guess what’s painful? Seeing your little bitty babies cry, that’s painful. So you gotta clean that up. So I have cleaned that up so when my kids are upset because we’re about to separate from them, whether that’s me or their dad or whatever, I know that it’s really important for me to hold space for their feelings.

So instead of you’re sad, now I’m going to be sad, so I’m going to try to talk you out of being sad, it’s, it’s okay for you to be sad. I’m not sad. I know you’re safe and daddy always comes back and it’s okay for you to be sad. Do you see how there’s space for both? It’s like you’re allowing them to feel sad without you being sad. This is really important because then if you’re sad about their sadness, then there’s like this emotional dependency that they pick up on. And it’s just unhelpful for you in that moment, but it’s also unhelpful for them down the road. And so instead, it’s, it’s really validating them, but validating is just like, I see you. I’m not trying to talk you out of your feelings. I get it. It’s hard for me when daddy leaves too. And I love you and he always comes back. I think of it as like a, a confident and strong goodbye. A lot of times I see like the biggest mistake that I think well intended, very loving parents make with separation is trying to get your kids to feel better before actually separating, which increases the doubt that your kids have because they’re like, oh no, now mommy’s not leaving or daddy’s not leaving.

And now like my negative emotion, my sadness is warranted versus I know you’re sad and I also know you’re safe and I love you and goodbye or whatever, right? And you, and it depends if this is like goodbye for school every day, you might have a little routine mixed in there or something like that. But in this example, with my son, my youngest son, Jack, who was just experiencing some sadness when daddy was leaving, when Steve was leaving, it was daddy always comes back, he loves you, give big hugs and kisses, goodbye.

Like a strong and confident goodbye I think is so important there. And obviously it’s so important for me that my kids have a secure attachment person that they feel safe with, especially when they are really young. That’s just one of my values. I think it, I think it does matter. So that was the separation moment. I have to say, like I never want to see my kids sad, right? Who does? But I wasn’t sad in that moment. I was calm. I was confident. I held space. I expected it. It was not a problem. Do you see the difference there? Life changing, my friends, life changing. Okay. Now let’s move on to number three. A favorite of mine for utilizing my tools, a hard witching hour moment, which is like every day. Am I right? It’s like from 4:00 PM to like 8:00, 8:30, just that, that slow decline, right?

Because our capacities, everyone’s mind you know, my kids, they’re decreasing, right? We’ve been up all day. It’s, it’s tiring and that’s real. And, you can navigate witching hour in a way where you might feel physically tired, but you don’t feel mentally or emotionally exhausted or frustrated. Huge difference. I, I, like it’s so interesting here because it’s like, I don’t want to brag or, or sound like this is unbelievable, but I also want you to know life is so much better, okay? Life is so much better on the other side when you actually do this work because my witching hours at the end of them or even when I’m going through them, like I feel tiredness, but I can feel those sensations in my body. Like sometimes it, it feels like what are those blankets called? Those weighted blankets. It feels kind of like a weighted blanket on my face sometimes, like the heaviness, right?

But I don’t feel stressed. I don’t feel frustrated. I don’t feel triggered. I don’t feel mentally or emotionally exhausted. I don’t have the negative, you know, banter in my mind. Like I wish I was doing something else. It shouldn’t be happening. Why is this so hard? I also don’t feel like I’m holding in that I’m about to snap, right? And, and so that’s a huge difference. I think sometimes we think that this work can be about, oh, I’m just going to be a unicorn and be happy all the time or like, oh, they don’t understand. It’s like, that’s why I’m sharing with you. I have the three boys under five and we’re talking about witching hour, okay? Anyone who says that that is a walk in the park or a walk on the beach with a hot cup of coffee with your best friend is lying to you.

Okay? It is not. And also, it doesn’t have to be mentally and emotionally exhausting. It doesn’t have to feel like you’re about to snap. It doesn’t have to feel like you’re so overwhelmed, right? So we gotta work on though work out of the moment as well as your nervous system’s capacity for overstimulation, which I have done a ton of work on. My membership girlies know that I like to imagine myself as the leading or attending emergency physician and I’m triaging, okay? No medical background at all. Lots of physicians in my family and my clients. And so I just imagine myself as a leader in that position. And so I, I, I sort of glorify it in a positive way because I don’t have the belief that, you know, doing a nighttime routine with three under five is supposed to be idyllic. I think it’s supposed to be challenging.

They’re little brains. Are you kidding me? It’s so hard for them. I don’t think that they’re supposed to want to go upstairs and make all these transitions and then go to bath time. And like I, know that and I believe that and it serves me. And then when I can embody my leadership authority and I just have this visual of me being like an attending and triaging and, that helps me control what I can control. So on default, this is my default if I didn’t do this work in these hard moments during witching hour when none of my boys want to go upstairs, none of them want to take a bath, none of them want to, get their pajamas on. Are you kidding me? No, no, no. They don’t, definitely don’t want to do that, they don’t want to do any part of the nighttime routine.

They don’t want to eat dinner, right? We do that first, obviously. They, they don’t want to do any of that. And so I expect that. And my default would be, this is like pulling teeth. Why is this so hard? It shouldn’t be this hard. Like a little bit of, I, I would say my personal flavor of this is like self-pity and like low grade frustration. And actually both of them are low grade. I wouldn’t say that this is ever like debilitating, right? If you’re listening to this, you’re a high achiever, you can take on a lot. It’s not about that. It’s like your inner experience. What’s that like? Do you have a little bit of that low grade tension, self-pity, frustration, tension that builds up? And again, with this example, it’s like, it’s every day, right? Typically. And so in that case, doing this work is life changing.

It’s so life changing because on the other side of that, I’m telling you, life is still lifeing. The dogs are barking. UPS is definitely going to deliver something during dinner or people are going to knock on my door. And what else is going to happen? The, you know, youngest, Jack’s going to have a meltdown. Henry’s going to go upstairs. Robert’s going to want to talk about his day and he’s going to be mad that I’m not listening as, as well as he wants me to. And it could be so easy for me to just jump to catastrophic thinking and really go to a place of, this is so hard, this isn’t fair, why is this easier? When is the season going to be over? And I don’t have those thoughts because of my though work that I do out of the moment. And therefore, in the moment, I expect them to be them.

I expect the environment to be loud. Like I have this though that three under five is supposed to be loud. It’s supposed to be messy. It’s supposed to be kind of chaotic. And I kind of love that. I’m, I’m so serious, so, so serious, my friend. You can get there. I promise you. It’s so much better on this side. And this is coming to you from like a type A high achiever who once lived in like a penthouse in the city when everything was white, okay? I have two dogs and three boys and it is loud and messy and crazy. Do not come over at 6: PM. I’m telling you, I would not recommend it. It’s not going to be a peaceful walk on the beach with your girlfriend sipping coffee, okay? And I’m not frustrated. I’m not tense. I’m not overwhelmed. You know, I think everyone has a nervous system capacity for overstimulation, but I have expanded mine so much, mostly because of the modality of thought work.

Most nervous system techniques are going to teach you how to do work in the moment, which I am a fan of. First of all, I’m a fan of anything that works. But also, I, I think the key missing piece that is so life changing for me and my clients is doing the work out of the moment. And so for me, I don’t have thoughts like, I can’t take this anymore. No one listens. Why is this so hard? Why can’t they just leave me alone or why can’t they just do what I ask or, this is enabling. Like I don’t have any of those thoughts. I have thoughts like this. We are on the same team. Witching hour is supposed to be hard. It’s my job to lead them and make this fun and playful, not just for them, it will help them, but for me too, because I want to be all in.

I just talked about this in an email, in my Thursday email. Make sure you are subscribed to that, momonpurpose.com/subscribe. I send out an email every single Thursday. And I just wrote one about don’t resist commit. So I don’t want to resist witching hour. I want to commit to it. I want to challenge me to be an all-time leader in a very challenging circumstance for me in the circumstance of the nighttime. And so what do I do? I think we’re on the same team. It’s going to be loud. It’s going to be messy. They’re not going to want to go upstairs and get in a bath and put on pajamas and eat dinner. And if I was two, three, four, five, I wouldn’t want to do that either. I would just want to play or do whatever I’m doing, of course. I have the belief that I don’t like to do what I don’t want to do, okay?

And you probably have this too, but it’s really helpful with parenting. So our kids don’t want to do something that we want them to do because they don’t want to do it. If someone just walked up to me right now while I’m recording this, which is my play, this is fun for me, and they said, “Hey, I need you to stop doing that and get in the shower.” I’d be like, “Nope, not doing that. This is way more fun. I don’t want to go and take a shower. That does not sound fun.” Okay. And so I have this understanding of where they’re coming from. I don’t expect them to want to do transitions and eat dinner and get their pajamas on and do all of those things. No, no, no, no, no. So my thoughts make witching hour not a problem at all. And I know that the mom I want to be is someone who is there for witching hour who does it.

And so when my brain goes to, “I wish I was doing something else. I wish I was having coffee with my girlfriend, having a chit chat.” I remind myself that’s not actually true because what’s actually true is that I want to be with my kids doing witching hour. How do I know that? Because that’s what I’m doing. What you are doing is always what you want to be doing. It’s just harder than you though. So I tell myself, I don’t actually want to be doing something else. I want to be here with my kids and it’s harder than I though. Okay. I don’t wish it was easier. I wish I was stronger. I always go back to that. All right, this is getting long, but I got two more. Let’s go on. Example number four, a fighting moment. Oh my goodness. My boys be fighting three under five, my friends.

They are throwing, they are hitting. You know, one of my boys kinda likes to instigate the others and it is not the oldest, which is so fascinating to me, born with all the confidence in the world. All of them have kind of different go-tos for the way that they navigate conflict, i.e. The way they fight. Some of them are more aggressive, others of them are more sensitive. And it doesn’t matter. It’s your brothers, so you’re with them all day pretty much, and they fight. I love to jump in not to rescue, not to vilify anyone and save anyone, but to hold boundaries. Now, if I’m making dinner or I’m doing something else and they’re kind of playing, I can’t jump in. But I do like to say, like some people take the philosophy of like, “Oh, they’ll figure it out.” I’m like, “They are operating with the brain the size of a peanut.” Like that, that is not my take at all on parenting.

However, I’m not trying to be referee. So I’m not saying, “Okay, what happened? You tell me and I’m going to solve this.” Right? What I do is I jump in to keep them safe so I don’t have to jump in and hold one or grab the toy or whatever. And then once everyone’s safe, it’s like, “Okay, what’s happening here? Oh, you both want to play with this racetrack or these monster trucks or whatever it is they’re playing with? What do you think we could do right here?” I often ask that question, “How do you think we could share? What do you think we could do? How do you think we could play together?” I try to open it up to them. Now, do you think that they always come to a resolution that way? Absolutely not. The older they get, the more they’ll be able to do that.

So I want to start that now. So sometimes I have to help them come up with a solution, but I’m not holding myself out as a referee. I am holding myself out as someone who is there to keep them safe. So one of my beliefs is that whenever I view one of them as like a villain and the other one as a victim, I create that drama triangle, right? The villain, the victim, and the hero. And I don’t want to be the hero, right? Because I don’t want them to see one of them even in, if it changes every circumstance, which often it does, where one of them’s the villain, one of them’s the victim. And then we shame the villain, right, and we rescue the victim as the hero. I don’t want to do that. I want to really teach all of my boys that they are strong, that they are confident, that they are capable, that they can figure it out themselves, that they are respectful.

Now, does that mean that one of them isn’t actually hitting the other one or isn’t actually running up to them and pulling a toy out of their hand? Absolutely not. Of course they’re doing that. But that’s where I come in and I hold the boundary and say, “I won’t let you hit. I won’t let you touch your brother that way. We don’t touch each other like that in our families. We’re respectful and I might have to move you.” You know, I might say, “Okay, and now you come with me. We’re going to go in the kitchen and you’re going to help mommy cook.” Or something like that, right? But that’s a completely different experience than, “Don’t do that. How dare you?” Right? And, and shaming. Okay? Next, last one. Still with me? A disrespectful moment. So one of my boys is, is more like mental. So he, just is, is very verbal.

He’s got a great vocabulary. He’s very smart. He loves to learn. And I can relate to this because like me, he is someone who talks a lot. Like I like to talk, okay? And so sometimes the way that he expresses his frustration is with zingers that we might call disrespectful. Now, disrespect, that word disrespect is always a though, okay? Now, what I’m not saying is that you might not want to think that though. You probably do sometimes, but when we say a circumstance is disrespectful, then we use someone else’s actions and we attack ourselves with them. And when it’s in a parenting situation, when your kid, you know, says, “I hate you,” and you say, “You disrespected me,” now you’ve made the whole thing about you. And it’s very hard to parent from that place. Now, what I’m not saying is that you don’t have boundaries and you don’t say, “I won’t let you talk to me like that.” But before you can parent, before you can say what you want to say, you have to be coming from a place that is, like embodied in your mom leadership.

So for me, when my kid says, my, my kid who’s extroverbal and articulate and has those zingers sometimes, if he says, “I hate you,” right? He once said like, “You’re the worst mommy ever.” I am coming from a place of, “Oh my goodness, he’s in a lot of pain,” right? I don’t make that about me, okay? He is just in so much pain that the way that he processes his pain is verbal. Now, that’s not an excuse. That’s where I’m coming from so that I can parent him, not from a place of feeling attacked, not from a place of needing his approval. Like I don’t need him to say nice things to me for me to feel good about myself, but I do also want to teach him how to be respectful, but in that moment, that’s not the teaching moment. That’s the holding boundaries and validating and where do we go from here moment.

Now, out of the moment, we can talk about language that’s kind and respectful and nice and how we can express our frustration in a way that isn’t through words that can hurt other people, I want to teach that. But in that moment, if I am taking that on as an attack on me, I’m not going to be able to parent well. So if my kid says, “I hate you, you’re a terrible mom,” then I immediately am thinking, “Oh my goodness, he is in a lot of pain right now.” And depending on what happened, I might say something like, “I know you don’t like the decision that mommy made. I know you wanted to go over to your friend’s house and I’m not letting you and it’s so hard not to get what you want, and you’re allowed to think whatever you want about mommy. And also, I won’t let you say those words to mommy because we don’t say those words in this house.” Do you see how different that is?

It’s holding a boundary of what words you’re willing to tolerate, but it’s not about, “Oh my gosh, my kid’s disrespectful.” As soon as we have that though, now we’ve labeled our kid. Now it’s like this whole identity thing versus I hold the strong label of whatever the opposite is. So if my kid takes an action that could be interpreted as disrespectful, I immediately go to the label that I want to have for him, which is you are so respectful. You are a really respectful kid. And it’s okay to not like your mom sometimes. And those are sometimes inside thoughts. And for me and your dad, you can always tell us what you’re thinking. And also, we have to talk about it not in that language, okay? Now, it depends. Is it in the moment? What just happened? There’s context for that. But I mean, it’s pretty hard for me to, to take things personally that my kids say because I’ve done so much work.

I know that what they say is not about me. It’s about them. It’s about their thoughts and their feelings because what we say is a reflection of how we’re thinking and feeling. And that’s why you don’t need to be, you know, a psychologist or have a PhD or, you know, hire a parenting expert for the perfect script. You need to understand human behavior. And you need to understand that thoughts create feelings and feelings drive actions. And everything you say or do is just a symptom. It’s like the tip of the iceberg. What’s underneath is your thoughts and your feelings. So I know that when my kid says something or does something, that it’s a reflection of what’s going on underneath. And yes, there are actions that are acceptable and actions that are unacceptable. And I want to teach that. And also, in the moment, I know it’s never about the action.

I know it’s never about my kid saying, “I hate you, you’re the worst mom ever.” I know it’s actually about, “Oh my goodness.” For my kid to say that, he’s in a lot of pain right now. Okay? And so you get to decide as the mom, when do you want to teach? You know, how do you want to show up in that moment? How do you want to validate that, you know, whatever their feeling is allowed and those words aren’t, right? You get to make those decisions, but it’s going to be really hard to parent from that place if you’re making it about you. If it’s a cognitive distortion to take everything personally. And listen, I get it. I am raised in the you’re a good girl era people pleaser and I want everyone to approve of me and like me. And I’m telling you, that line of thinking gets in the way of good parenting.

It really does. And so I continuously do work on it. So my beautiful friends, three boys under five, hard moments every day. We got this. Okay? This is not about me, this is really about you. So join me in the Mom On Purpose Membership. Start learning these tools so you can practice them because you already know intellectually that you are capable of being the mom who you want to be and experiencing that internally. You just need the practice, the tools and the coaching to support that. I would love to see you inside momonpurpose.com/coaching. Until next week, my friends, take care.